Sending ERP initiated service entry sheets to Ariba Buying and from there to the network?

[karimelgamal]

Due to customisations we are currently unable to release the create service entry sheet option in Ariba Buying to our end-users. 

Instead, our end-users are creating SeS in ECC and we are sending them back to Ariba Buying through CIG. This works fine, except that the ERP-initiated SeS which are created in Ariba Buying are not forwarded to the Ariba Network from Buying. This is different behaviour from what we see if we (manually) create a SeS directly in Ariba Buying, in which case it is sent to the network.

I suspect that the ERP-initiated SeS not being seen as a paper-based service entry sheet by Ariba Buying and therefore it is not being routed to the AN.

Does anyone know if this is a known limitation, or if there is a way to get the ERP initiated service sheets imported in Ariba Buying, and from there routed to the Network?

[karimelgamal · Accepted solution]

In case anyone runs into the same issue, here's what caused the problem:

In our deployment the numbering of the PO line items in Ariba (1, 2, 3, etc) does not correspond with the numbering of the CC PO line items in ECC (10, 20, 30, etc). 

The add-on program responsible for sending the ERP initiated SeS back to Ariba Buying does not take this into account, and uses the line numbering of the CC PO in ECC (10, 20 , 30, etc) as the PO line item reference in the SeS message.

Ariba Buying does not generate an error and the SeS is accepted by the Buying system.

The Business Network (BN) however does not accept the SeS. But as no error message is generated this was impossible for us as a customer to see. By analysing the log files, Ariba Support determined that the BN does not accept the SES line if the PO line reference in the SeS (10, 20, 30 etc) does noet match a PO line number on the BN (1, 2, 3, etc).

This also explains why in some rare cases we did see a SeS appear on the BN: if the PO contains 10 or more line items and you happen to create a SeS in ECC for (as an example) PO line item 10 (which is line 1 in the Ariba PO). In that case the BN simply assumes that the SeS was intended for the tenth line item in the PO.

We resolved this by changing the standard add-on program that sends the ERP generated SeS back to Ariba Buying: it determines the corresponding Ariba PO line number (1, 2, 3, etc) and sends that back to Ariba Buying instead of the ECC CC PO line number (10, 20, 30, etc).